Welcome to the World's First Great Big Vegetable Challenge! Six years ago we went on a vegetable journey of a lifetime. A 7 year year old boy named Freddie and his mother faced up to the challenge of turning him from a Vegetable-Phobic into a boy who will eat and even enjoy some of life's leafier pleasures. We ate through the alphabet of vegetables...and returned to tell the tale. Join our Great Big Veg Challenge!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

N is for Nori

The letter C had vegetables emerging from every corner. But the letter N has taken a lot of coaxing. I sent a group email around the office to generate more inspiration. Other office emails invite people to share a pint in the pub or join a football team. Mine have become rather narrow in their focus. But my colleagues are tolerant. Putting aside the comments that I needed therapy or a holiday, (do they not realise that cooking all these vegetables is better than therapy?), they suggested neeps, nuts, nori and nopales. I rejected nuts as they aren't vegetables. The Scottish dish of neeps will have to feature later on under S for Suede.But nori and nopales intrigued me.

Nori used to be a more general term for various kinds of seaweed but nowadays it usually refers to the thin dried seaweed sheets that are used in some sushi dishes. It starts off life as a reddish coloured plant that is made into these dark green paper sheets. Like the Japanese, we decided to hold our very own nori day. I found a ‘Make Your Own Sushi Kit’ in a health food store. ‘Make Your Own’ kits always make me nervous. It is never as easy as the label suggests. So I handed it over to Freddie and Alex who are far less jaded. The kit came complete with a bamboo sushi rolling mat, sushi rice and crisp paper sheets of nori. They made three fillings: cucumber, tuna mayonnaise and avocado. The end result was impressive for two first time sushi chefs.

10 comments:

They're incredible! Looks delicious too. I just checked Freddie's naming and shaming fridge to see what he likes, and I think asparagus and radish would both be nice too - with fish or without. There's a place here that does a roll with foie gras, truffles, caviar, and gold leaf. I love the first 3, but together? Not so much.

Well done sushi chefs! they look like the real deal. My favourite homemade sushi filling is smoked mackerel with cucumber and a smear wasabi (just enough to give a slightly eyewatering kick, but the cucumber's there to cool things down!)

Oh and not forgetting the pickled ginger and bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce.

You can pop up to Geordieland and make me some sushi any day Freddie and Alex! I can't wait until Cerys is old enough for us to play around with our sushi kit - the one that has been lying in the cupboard for 5 years awaiting Helen's promised sushi.......

I'm looking forward to seeing what else you do with nori. It's my 13 and a half month old daughter's favourite snack and has been for months and months. I don't have any good suggestions though -- currently I just tear her off strips from the sheets you use to make sushi (I think the initial attraction was her friend eating it, and that it's like being allowed to eat paper).

In the supermarkets in chinatown they have sachets of seasoned seaweed - they're sooo delicious (but you always get green flecks in your teeth) but perhaps a bit too spicy and salty for the kids - I've been eating them since I was about 5 though. http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H7i3b+7WL._AA280_.jpg